Digital Marketplace on verge of launch

The government’s new Digital Marketplace procurement platform is set to launch within two weeks, the Government Digital Service has announced.

The GDS has spent the past six months developing the Digital Marketplace to replace CloudStore as the online home for purchases through the G-Cloud framework.

And yesterday it announced that the two platforms would run in parallel during September before CloudStore is turned off at the end of the month.

A blog by Ivanka Majic, service manager at GDS, said: “Digital Marketplace is reaching a stage which allows us to consider making it the route for G-Cloud purchases.

“We are considering a staged approach to its launch and will be making sure there is a four week transition period during which people will be able to choose whether they buy through CloudStore or Digital Marketplace.”

The GDS has been testing a private beta version of the site since July with suppliers, using G-Cloud 4 and G-Cloud 5 catalogues, less the supporting documents.

Majic encouraged suppliers, upon launch, to try out the final version of the Digital Marketplace and provide feedback, as well as updating their bookmarks.